Borbála Dobozy J.S. Bach: Clavier-Übung II.; Four Duets, Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue
“The instrument sounds heavenly and reveals a flexible, relaxed technique: the range of articulations and the sophistication of the agogics are remarkable, and the expression is always natural and pure”, praised the reviewer Borbála Dobozy's previous Bach album in the French magazine Classica, which also granted its CHOC award to the recording.
After the Wohltemperiertes Klavier and the Little Preludes and Inventions, the harpsichordist has now compiled a selection of Bach's secular compositions for keyboard.
The second volume of Clavier-Übung (Keyboard Exercises) comprises two large-scale works: the Ouverture in B minor, a study of French musical style, which stands out among Bach's well-known English and French suites already with its sheer length, and the Italian Concerto, a transcription of an imaginary Italian concerto that brilliantly imitates the alternation of solos and orchestral passages typical of the genre on a single instrument.
The album continues with the Four Duets from the third volume of the Clavier-Übung, which can practically be described as a longer, more complex sequel to the two-part inventions, and the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, exerting an elemental effect on the listener with its romantic emotional exuberance and the extraordinary boldness of its harmonies even today.
Artists
Borbála Dobozy - harpsichord
About the album
Recorded by Tamás Dévényi at BMC Studio, 28-31 August, 2024
Recording producer: Ibolya Tóth
Mixed and mastered by Tamás Dévényi
Artwork: Anna Natter / Cinniature
Produced by László Gőz
Label manager: Tamás Bognár
Supported by the National Cultural Fund of Hungary
Overture in the French Style (Clavier-Übung II, BWV 831) - Suite in B minor
Italian Concerto (Clavier-Übung II, BWV 971)
Four Duets (Clavier-Übung III, BWV 802-805)
Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue (BWV 903)
This CD contains a varied selection of Johann Sebastian Bach’s secular compositions for keyboard instruments. The word “varied” applies to the genre of the pieces, the date they were written, their character, and the choice of possible instrument for them. Some works can be played on the clavichord, while others can be played on the organ. However, in
this recording, Borbála Dobozy plays all of them on a harpsichord, an instrument that is considered the most obvious choice in many cases; only the duets sound equally effective on the harpsichord and on the organ (without pedal).
Some of the compositions on the recording are written specifically for a two-manual instrument. It is worth mentioning here that in the usage of eighteenth-century German, the word “Clavier” covered far more meanings than today’s German word “Klavier”, which denotes a piano with a hammer action. However, in Bach’s time, this word was not only applied to any kind of keyboard instrument, but also to the keyboard itself – or a particular row of keys, or manual.
During his lifetime, Bach published a significant proportion of his organ and harpsichord works in four printed volumes, each given the Baroque falsely modest title Clavier-Übung (i.e. “keyboard exercises”), with the corresponding volume number. Naturally, these publications did not contain études or other didactic material, but partly sacred, partly secular organ music, and harpsichord pieces (which in some cases could be played on the clavichord). However, these were not for students, but – as we read on the cover of Volume 3 – for “music-lovers, and particularly for connoisseurs (Kenner)”.
The second volume of the Clavier-Übung was first published in 1735, with two extensive compositions that represented the two cornerstones of secular instrumental music of the time – and also the influences on Bach in this field – the French suite and the Italian concerto, the world of Couperin and Vivaldi. Of course, the two genres continually cross- fertilized one another, particularly in the works of German composers. But there are also many examples of their deliberate juxtaposition: here we find the latter, and Bach emphasized the two styles, the two contrasting worlds, by choosing two notes as far as possible apart in the cycle of fifths for the tonics of the two works, B and F.
(An early version of the suite was written in C minor.)
Overture in the French Style, BWV 831
This rarely played French suite by Bach (which as was the composer’s custom, was designated by the title of its opening movement) was preceded by three series of keyboard suites: the so-called English and French suites, and the Partitas. This work stands out from the others by virtue of several individual characteristics. One is the unusually large scale: the Overture’s solemn opening section, with an accumulation of dotted rhythms, returns at the end of the movement in a varied form, enclosing the fast-paced 6/8 fugue section. After this, there follow six dance movements, three of which are in two sections; of these, the Sarabande, which is highly contrapuntal and full of dissonances, stands out in terms of weight and significance. Another individual feature is that the work closes with a movement bearing the inscription “Echo”, but in which we find hardly any echo effects: its bipartite form and varied texture show kinship to the preludes of the Wohltemperiertes Klavier.
Italian Concerto, BWV 971
“Concerto according to the Italian taste” – to be precise, this is how the F major composition is described on the title page of the publication. In previous decades, Bach had studied Italian concerto music extensively and had also made keyboard transcriptions of a whole range of pieces – compositions by Vivaldi, Torelli and others. In this case, he adapted a non-existent “original” concerto for harpsichord, imitating the contrast of orchestral tuttis and solo sections with the alternation of sounds made possible by the two manuals. However, on closer inspection, the nearly 200-bar opening movement surpasses the Italian models with its many details and primarily its complexity. The highlighting of the solo sections is a second theme full of character with a sigh-motif; however, during the movement, the boundaries between the tutti (or ripieno) sections and the solos are sometimes blurred, partly because, with inexhaustible invention, Bach shapes new motifs from one or other cell of the original themes. The central movement follows the Vivaldi pattern more closely, with the difference that Bach writes out the notes in the burgeoning ornaments of the melody, which unfolds mostly in thirds over the simple ostinato rhythm of the accompaniment. Despite the preponderance of notes, however, it is not a timeless Adagio, but leisurely paced Andante. The scale motifs that permeate the entire movement lend the concluding Presto an irrepressible energy. Bach makes ingenious use of the possibilities offered by the two manuals, and in the torrent of scales and broken chords, he even hints at the possibilities of counterpoint.
Four Duets, BWV 802–805
The next volume of the Clavier-Übung, published in 1739, contains predominantly organ works: chorale variations with varied techniques and, to conclude, a five-part fugue. But before the fugue, we find four “Duettos,” their two-voice texture almost ascetic among organ works that often require a pedal register. However, it is only at first glance that these works might appear simple. In terms of genre, these two-part inventions can be understood as a continuation of a much earlier series, but they are longer, more complex, and in places adopt surprising solutions: they are Bach’s late masterpieces.
The theme of the first duet in E minor begins with a scale zigzagging up and down, then ends with capricious, choppy, chromatic gestures. The bass line heard against the first presentation of the theme moves in large intervals, and Bach uses it as as a second theme: with octave transpositions, the two form a double counterpoint, and Bach combines elements of the two themes in constantly new ways throughout the movement.
The second duet, in F major, is quite unusual: it is in ternary form (ABA), like a Da capo aria, but here the middle section is much longer than the A section, and it contrasts the demonstratively diatonic main theme with a new theme that snakes restlessly through chromaticisms and contains a prominent augmented second. The situation is rendered more complex by the way this augmented second begins sometimes in stressed beats, and sometimes where it is unstressed.
The special feature of the third composition, in G major, is that in the closing section, the theme returns, dismantled into pieces, in the main key, shared between both hands, and adorned with completely new scale motifs.
The fourth duet, in A minor, is characterized by less intricate part-writing and is much more graceful. The whole movement is driven forward by a moto perpetuo four-note figure, which once or twice is replaced by scale passages. Despite the minor key, here chromaticism plays a relatively small role.
Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, BWV 903
The last composition to be heard on this CD is by far the earliest: it was probably written around 1720, or perhaps even before 1717. Along with the Italian Concerto, it is one of Bach’s most often played instrumental works. In many respects, it is unique in his oeuvre: the emotional exaltation characteristic of the fantasia actually evokes Romanticism, the harmonies are extraordinarily bold and capricious in a way that still has an elemental impact on the listener. Moreover, together with the enormous, written-out cadenza of the opening movement of the Brandenburg Concert No. 5, it is one of the two works that conjures up, almost with the faithfulness of a recording, the atmosphere of Bach’s improvisations, which were so admired by his contemporaries. Bach marked the second section of the mighty Fantasia as “Recitative”. After the rushing scale passages and broken chords of the initial section, this designation refers not to the vocal recitatives of the opera or cantata, but to the instrumental recitatives then popular in Italy and Germany. In this section, emotional, speech-like gestures alternate with improvisatory, virtuoso passages. The theme of the three- voice fugue also makes use of chromatic steps, but in terms of harmony the movement is much more restrained than the prelude. However, it is a worthy counterpart to it, in the way that, unusually for a fugue, Bach subjects the theme to multifarious, flexible transformation and variation throughout the movement.
János Malina
Translated by Richard Robinson